At Close Range (14 page)

“I see,” Mack said. He didn't see at all. Whoever had been in the Bronco that night they'd brought Pablo home had been real, not any revenant. And whoever—whatever—Pedro, Corrie and he had seen the night before was as real as the walls surrounding them, or the telephone receiver in his hand.

“There's nothing else, really,” Pete said. “Couple of bits of hay, a few grains of adobe mud—also old, by the way, since it had evidence of very old manure in it. Kinda gross, if you ask me. Anyway, Mack, tell Chance all this for me and let me know if you find any more scraps of cloth like this. Linda's drooling.”

Mack hung up the phone feeling dazed, but still sure the woman they'd seen the night before was every bit as real as the woman staring at him.

“That was about the cloth, wasn't it?” Corrie asked.

She had a smudge of ink across her forehead and a pen tucked over her ear. Her long, thick hair spilled out of its single pencil confine. As was common indoors, she was barefoot, her toenail polish rubbed off in places and bright in others. Her clothing was a rumpled collection of mismatched items that appeared to have been discovered at the bottom of a Salvation Army heap.

He didn't think he'd ever seen anyone as staggeringly beautiful in his life.

He felt something hard melting inside him. He couldn't help but smile at her.

At his smile, something in her eyes seemed to flicker. She smiled back, her harried features softening, a glow suffusing her face.

“The cloth?” she reminded him.

“That was Pete Salazar, Chance's cousin. He said there was nothing much unusual about the cloth—”

“Except?”

“Except that it was woven about two hundred years ago.”

To his delight, Corrie grinned. “Really?”

Rita crossed herself and kissed the cross she'd taken to wearing around her neck.

“Two hundred years old?” Corrie asked, her eyes wide. She looked like a kid on the verge of hearing a ghost story.

“Yeah. Something about it being wool-dyed and some rare kind of flax oil.”

“My grandmother used to spin her own wool,” Rita said slowly. She crossed herself again. “She had a spinning wheel, and after we would shear the sheep, she would comb the wool and wash it, then comb it again. Then she would feed it into the wheel. I remember the sound of her foot on the floor, tapping a rhythm as her hand would send the wheel spinning and her fingers worked the thread.”

“Did she use flax?” Corrie asked.

“She did something to it. Boiled something, mashed it, maybe. It stank, I remember that. She would have us hold the wands, which she wrapped with the twine, and she would dip her fingers into flax and rewind the yarn into balls.”

“So the process isn't that unusual,” Mack said.

Rita raised her eyebrows. “My grandmother was in her nineties when I was only ten. I've never heard of anyone doing it that way anymore. And people thought she was crazy then, when you could go to the notions store and buy yarn in any color.”

“Hippies,” Corrie said.

“What?”

“Back-to-nature types. You know, Foxfire groups, back-to-nature types, hippies. I'll bet they still do it.”

“He was pretty adamant about it being at least two hundred years old, mentioned carbon dating and DNA testing.”

“Dios mio,”
Rita said.

“What?” Corrie asked.

“She really is La Dolorosa.”

The front door banged open, startling all of them, and Juan Carlos rushed into the room, panting, his hair flying, his eyes wider than they had been on a runaway horse. “She's here. La Dolorosa! We have her trapped in the barn!”

T
he Milagro children and mixed-breed pups were gathered outside the barn, forming a rough semicircle in front of the great doors. Jason, Jenny and Tony huddled on one side; the little ones, Analissa and Pedro, on the other. Pedro was in tears and Analissa, totally ignoring her station at the barn door, was bent over slightly, trying to see his face and cajole him into a smile. The pups were barking excitedly, straining at their tethers.

Mack passed Juan Carlos at a dead run. “Stay outside, kids,” he yelled before plunging into the dark opening of the barn.

Rita plucked at Corrie's blouse to keep her from following suit, but Corrie shook free, almost as easily as she passed the children in the yard.

The darkness of the barn was disorienting after the dazzling light of the drive. Corrie could barely see
Mack's shadowy form some twenty feet in front of her. But she'd made a study of his walk, his shoulders, and could have picked him out in a crowd of five hundred at midnight.

“Is she here?” Corrie asked.

“Quiet,” Mack said.

She could tell by the way he cocked his head he was listening to something. He moved toward one of the farthest stalls. Corrie closed the distance between them.

A slight figure cowered in the corner of the stall, a black shadow.

Mack barked,
“Quien es?”
Who is it?

“Por favor, señor,”
a frightened woman's voice begged. “No dogs.”

Corrie's heart melted at the note of fear in the woman's tone. She brushed past Mack and into the stall. For a moment, with her body between Mack's and the woman-ghost in the stall, she had the strong feeling she'd just crossed some invisible barrier between sympathy and stupidity.

“I'm sorry,” the woman said in Spanish. “Please—”

This small, frightened woman couldn't begin to be dangerous. She didn't look nearly as ghostly huddled in the barn stall as she had on the dark ranch road that night. “It's okay,” Corrie said, stepping closer. “You don't have to be frightened.”

“I didn't mean to hurt anyone,” the woman sobbed. “Please don't set the dogs on me.”

“You didn't harm a thing,
señora.
It's all right. The dogs are outside. They wouldn't hurt you, anyway. They're only puppies.” She took another step and held
out a hand. Strangely, it didn't shake. “You're Pedro's mother, aren't you?”

“I'm so sorry,” the woman said, and broke down into racking sobs.

Corrie could no more have walked away from the pain in the woman's voice than she could have turned her back on someone injured. She stepped forward and wrapped an arm around the thin shoulders of the sobbing woman. “Don't cry,
señora.
Everything will be okay.”

“I didn't know what else to do.”

“It's all right now.”

“People were talking about this place of miracles. How happy the children were here. The police told me Joe was released from prison. I was scared,
señora.
He told me he would kill me the next time he saw me. I believe him. He's a terrible man, yes, but he doesn't lie. He will kill me. I had to get Pedro safe. Please, I had nowhere to go.”

“Why didn't you just come with us that night on the road?”

Tear-drenched black eyes looked from Corrie to Mack and back again. “You only take children,” she said with devastating simplicity.

“Oh,” Corrie said, nonplussed. “But we wouldn't have turned you away.”

Dark eyes, so like Pedro's, rose to meet hers. “No? I didn't know. I was only concerned with Pedro.”

Mack cleared his throat. “So you abandoned him at the welfare office and then scared the others—and your own son—by pretending to be a ghost?” His voice was soft enough, but his tone and message rang sharp with censure.

She cowered against Corrie, beginning to cry again. Corrie threw Mack a hard look, angry he would be so callous.

He shook his head, his lips tight with barely checked anger.

“I didn't abandon him as you say,
señor.
I knew they would send him here. I hid on the side of the road when you went into town. You never saw me. I was going to be here when Pedro got here. But you saw me on your way back. You thought I was La Dolorosa.”

“That doesn't make it right,” Mack said.

“Mack,” Corrie said softly. He couldn't know what desperate measures people might be driven to. She'd interviewed countless women in similar situations. At least Pedro's mother deserved a modicum of approbation for an innovative solution.

“As long as people just thought La Dolorosa was here, Pedro was safe enough. But if Joe hears about me, he will come. Promise me you won't tell anyone. I'll leave today. I swear it. But you can't let anyone know I was here. You have to watch over Pedro for me.” Her voice hitched pathetically.

“And you,” Corrie said.

“No! I can't stay here. I only came to make sure Pedro was all right. And to say goodbye. I bring danger.”

“You're already here,” Mack said gruffly. “And if your excuse for a husband comes around, he'll be asking for bigger trouble than he's prepared to face.”

Looking at him, Corrie believed this. The ice was back in his eyes and he looked hard as proverbial nails and ready to tackle anything.

But Pedro's mother shook her head. “You don't know him,
señor.
It's like he has a demon in his soul. He won't care who he hurts to get at me. To take Pedro.”

“At least he loves Pedro,” Corrie said.

The woman looked at her as if Corrie had admitted she was a devil-worshipper. “He doesn't love Pedro. He believes he owns Pedro. That he can do anything he wants with him. And he wants to sell him like he does me. Or, how is it? Rent him out. Like a pimp.”

Corrie's hands involuntarily tightened around the woman. “Over my dead body,” she said.

“If Joe Turnbull has his way,
señora,
it will be. Believe me.”

Corrie hid her shudder at the note of implacability in the very human voice. “Call me Corrie,” she said, unable to think of anything to say as a capper to the woman's prediction of her own death.

Pedro's mother pointed at her chest. “Lucinda. Lucinda Ortega.”

Corrie frowned, lost in last names. “Well, Lucinda,” she said, leading the woman who was just a hint taller than she was from the stall, barely glancing at Mack's frustrated face, “let's take things one step at a time, okay? First off, I think it's time to let the kids see that you're not really a ghost. That reminds me. Are you missing a piece of your shawl or skirt?”

Lucinda shook her head, clearly baffled.

Corrie exchanged a glance with Mack.

“Never mind. Now, I think maybe Pedro would like to spend some time with his mama. Okay?”

Lucinda began to cry again. But these tears had nothing to do with sorrow or fear.

The children hung back as Corrie led Lucinda Ortega from the barn.

As always, Juan Carlos was the first to speak. “See, I told you she was real. Now do you believe me? La Dolorosa herself.”

None of the other children ventured an opinion. They stared at the woman leaning on Corrie, their eyes wide with awe and an apprehensive curiosity—all except Pedro, who looked bolted to the ground. In quick succession, a series of clear expressions crossed his features: guilt, fear, worry and a pity for his mother that Corrie never wanted to see in such a young face again.

“Kids,” Corrie said clearly, “this is Lucinda Ortega. She's Pedro's mother. She's going to be staying with us for a while.”

Pedro's eyes shot to hers and held there.
“Verdad?”

“Truly,” Corrie answered with a smile.

The solemn little face broke into the most beautiful smile Corrie believed she had ever seen. “Mama!” he called, and sprang across the few feet separating them and straight into his mother's arms.

“Oh, Pedro. My big, strong son. I love you so much. You were so brave. So good.”

“I was scared, Mama. Scared for you.”

“I know,
jito.
I'm so sorry.”

Corrie's eyes stung, snared by the tender reunion. When she glanced at Mack, she saw his jaw flexed as if he was swallowing emotions as well.

Analissa came to Mack and tugged on his pant leg before holding out her arms imperiously. With only
the slightest hesitation, Mack hefted her to his shoulder and settled her comfortably on his side.

“Pedro's mama is a ghost,” she confided. She patted Mack's cheek. “But we're not scared, right?”

“Not of her, pumpkin,” Mack said.

“No, 'cause it's silly to be afeared of ghosts. Because they can be somebody's mama, right?”

Mack gave an involuntary chuckle and his eyes cut to Corrie's, sharing the humor before turning back to the child. “I never thought of it quite that way,” he admitted. He smiled at the little girl and shared a slightly rueful grin with Corrie.

“No, because you're a growed-up.”

Mack nodded. “I think all us growed-ups and the rest of you young uns ought to head back to the house for now, get Pedro's mama some food and let them talk for a while.”

On the way back to the house, Jason took Jenny's hand in his. Corrie's heart wrenched at the shy smile the silent girl gave the boy.

She looked over at Mack. He'd witnessed the sweet moment as well. “It's easier for them,” he told her softly.

“Easier?”

“Young love.”

“I don't remember it being easy, exactly,” she said. “But then, I don't think I was ever really in love.”

“Never, Corrie?”

“Not—” She broke off. Not until now? Not really? Not like this?

He looked as if he'd say more.

Analissa patted his face. “Are you going to kiss Corrie?”

“Not here,” Mack said.

“Why not?”

“Too hard to kiss somebody when I'm carrying somebody else,” he said, and smiled at the little girl.

She giggled. “Me. I'm somebody. You love me, don't you?”

When he hesitated, Analissa snared his face between her tiny hands and pressed her forehead to his. “Tell me.”

He gave a ragged chuckle. “Okay. I love you.”

Analissa gave him a smack roughly on his eye. And firmly patted his cheeks. “I love you, too, Mack.”

So simple, Corrie thought. The little girl had demanded Mack admit his love for her and he did so. Cornered, trapped by two sticky little hands and entreating eyes, he'd given her his heart for the asking.

She wished she had the courage to do the same. But knew he wouldn't feel the same compunction with her that he did with a vulnerable child.

“Now tell Corrie,” Analissa said as she pushed his head sideways.

“Time to get inside,” he said, his eyes briefly connecting with Corrie's.

Nice try, Analissa, Corrie thought sadly.

He swept up the steps and into the house without further pleas from Analissa impeding his swift getaway.

 

Corrie spent the remainder of the afternoon on the telephone, first with the sheriff, breaking Lucinda's confidence by letting him know the woman was alive and well at Rancho Milagro. She couldn't very well let him keep on searching for a dead body when the
woman was presently in the kitchen eating tamales with her son. She told him what Lucinda had said about her husband, Joe, and the sheriff assured her he would keep her whereabouts under wraps.

“But, if I know Chance, he'd have my hide if you didn't get some help out there on the double. Trouble is, if I send a couple of deputies out there, Joe Turnbull would figure out the situation right off. He's dumb as a fence post about some things and smart as a fox about others. I think it would be better if we slipped in a couple of Chance's federal deputies. How about Ted? You know him, right?”

Corrie thought of the young deputy marshal so in love with Doreen from the post office, flirtatious single mother of three. “I couldn't take him away from Doreen.”

“I don't think dynamite would do that,” the sheriff chuckled. “But why not have Doreen and her brood out there for a visit, too? Nobody would think a thing of that. From what I hear, they go out there a lot, don't they?”

Corrie grinned. She liked the feisty postal worker and the kids would welcome her rowdy family. She realized with some shock that she hadn't seen what Leeza called “the horde” in only a scant week. It seemed months. A river of time since Mack had arrived there.

“I wouldn't want to put them in any danger,” Corrie said. “In fact, I was considering taking the children out of here until all this blows over.”

“With Ted out there, and the others—especially Mack Dorsey. You know Dorsey didn't say a word about who he was. Neither did Chance. I heard it from
Pete over at the crime lab. This Dorsey's the guy who rescued all those kids a couple years back in that fire.”

“Enchanted Hills,” Corrie said. She felt a frisson of an unfamiliar emotion working across her shoulders. A bit of pride mixed with a strong dose of regret. Regret that she couldn't erase the losses from him, sorrow that she didn't know how to wave a magic wand and make it okay for him. Or for
them.

“That's the one. He's a national hero. At any rate, with all that help, you're a lot safer right where you are than putting yourself at risk in unfamiliar territory,” the sheriff said. “In the meantime, I'm going to file an injunction against Joe Turnbull and have Judge Sanchez slap a restraining order on him. It won't do much—they seldom do—but at least we'll have some reason to arrest him if he gets anywhere near Lucinda.”

When she told Mack about the conversation later, he agreed with Eddy County's newest political appointment. “And I'll step up the training with the kids. Have them keep their eyes peeled.”